The ''Juche'' Tower (more formally, the Tower of the ''Juche'' Idea), completed in 1982, is a monument in

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populat ...

, the capital of

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

, and is named after the ideology of ''

Juche ''Juche'' ( ; ), officially the ''Juche'' idea (), is the state ideology of North Korea and the official ideology of the Workers' Party of Korea. North Korean sources attribute its conceptualization to Kim Il-sung, the country's founder and f ...

'' introduced by the country's first

leader Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets vi ...

Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung (; , ; born Kim Song-ju, ; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of ...

Background

The ''Juche'' Tower is situated on the east bank of the River Taedong, directly opposite

Kim Il-sung Square __NOTOC__ Kim Il-sung Square is a large city square in the Central District of Pyongyang, North Korea, and is named after the country's founding leader, Kim Il-sung. The square was constructed in 1954 according to a master plan for reconstructing ...

on the west bank. It was built to commemorate

's 70th

birthday A birthday is the anniversary of the birth of a person, or figuratively of an institution. Birthdays of people are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with birthday gifts, birthday cards, a birthday party, or a rite of passage. Many re ...

. Although his son and successor Kim Jong-il is officially credited as its designer, interviews with North Korean former officials contradict this assertion. The architectural style of the Tower is inspired by stone

pagodas A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

of premodern Korea. The structure is a four-sided tapering spirethe tallest in

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

containing 25,550 blocks (365 × 70: one for each day of Kim Il-sung's life, excluding supplementary days for leap years), dressed in white stone with seventy dividers and capped with a -high 45-ton illuminated metal torch. The torch on top of the tower is always lit. It is possible to ascend the tower by elevator and there are wide views over Pyongyang from the viewing platform just below the torch. At its base, there are reception rooms where videos explaining the tower's ideological importance are sometimes shown. The ''Juche'' Tower is the second tallest monumental column in the world after the

San Jacinto Monument The San Jacinto Monument is a column located on the Houston Ship Channel in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, about 16 miles due east of downtown Houston. The monument is topped with a 220-ton star that commemorates the site of the Battle of ...

in Texas, United States, which is taller. Associated with the tower is a -high statue consisting of three idealised figures each holding a toola hammer (the worker); a

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...

(the peasant); and a

writing brush Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Writing systems do not themselves constitute ...

(the "working

intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...

")in a classic Stalinistic-style reminiscent of the Soviet statue ''

Worker and Kolkhoz Woman ''Worker and Kolkhoz Woman'' () is a sculpture of two figures with a sickle and a hammer raised over their heads. The concept and compositional design belong to the architect Boris Iofan It is 24.5 metres (78 feet) high, made from stai ...

''. The three tools form the emblem of the ruling

Workers' Party of Korea The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) is the founding and sole ruling party of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea. Founded in 1949 from the merger of the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party ...

. There are also six smaller groups of figures, each high, that symbolize other aspects of ''

'' ideology. A wall carrying 82 friendship

plaque Plaque may refer to: Commemorations or awards * Commemorative plaque, a plate or tablet fixed to a wall to mark an event, person, etc. * Memorial Plaque (medallion), issued to next-of-kin of dead British military personnel after World War I * Pl ...

s from foreign supporters and ''Juche'' study groups forms part of the Tower.

Gallery

References

External links

Asian Historical Architecture: Juche Tower

Virtual tour of Juche Tower
{{National symbols of North Korea 1982 establishments in North Korea Towers completed in 1982 Buildings and structures in Pyongyang Monuments and memorials in North Korea National symbols of North Korea Towers in North Korea Tourist attractions in Pyongyang Monumental columns in North Korea Articles containing video clips

Background

Gallery

See also

References

External links